What Drives Whom? A Cultural Perspective on Human Agency

Abstract

This paper examines agency as a mechanism that can predict cultural differences in human motivation. In elaborating on the theory of self-construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) and drawing on past research on culture, we propose that people from cultures stressing independence are more personally agentic, whereas people from cultures stressing interdependence are more collectively agentic-which results in culturally contrasting differences in cognition and human motivation. Specifically, it is hypothesized that personal agents perceive agency to emanate from the self and, in turn, exhibit greater intrinsic motivation toward actions perceived as self-initiated, whereas collective agents perceive agency to lie within the collective and, in turn, exhibit greater intrinsic motivation toward behaviors perceived to originate from a collective. Such a framework elucidates current empirical research in the area of culture, cognition, and motivation as well as enables predictions about the contexts that can engender or inhibit human motivation across cultures.

Motivation and Achievement: Is There an East Asian Model?

“…As Hernandez & Iyengar (2001) proposed, people are motivated only when the contexts fostered a perception consistent with their culturally related values or beliefs. Therefore, it is important to take the effects of cultural values, norms, and practices into account when applying operation and effects of academic motivation to students from different cultures (Ng, 2003;Trueba, 1988).…”

When Choice Motivates and When It Does Not

“…Psychosocial theories suggesting that cultural differences in the preference for independence or interdependence, can help us understand this issue (e.g., Hernandez & Iyengar, 2001). One such theory is presented by Markus and Kitayama (1991).…”

The Role of Agentic and Communal Values in the Individuals’ Outcomes of Job Related Affective Well Being and Political Deviance

“…This framework had a role in recent studies investigating self-enhancement (Paulhus and John, 1998), behavior analysis (Moskowitz and Zuroff, 2005), personality (Gurtman and Pincus, 2003), action identification (Vallacher and Wegner, 1989), cognitive complexity (Woike, 1994), social identity (McGregor and Little, 1998), self-presentation (Paulhus and Trapnell, 2008), motivation and adjustment (Hernandez and Iyengar, 2001;Walls and Little, 2005) and job satisfaction (Abele, 2014). These basic values are deeply linked to personality and self-concept and connected to the socialization process.…”

“…It has been argued that individuals with A values strived more for primary control over their environment (Weisz, Rothbaum and Blackburn, 1984), thus in turn may have tendency to engage in self-centered behaviors reflecting their self-interests In sum, it was suggested that as core self-values, A and C values would be related with individuals' positive and negative outcomes of job related affective well-being and political deviance at work. In elaborating on the theories of self-construal (Markus and Kitayama, 1991), values (Schwartz, 1992) and A & C values (Trapnell and Paulhus, 2012) and drawing on past research on cultural psychology (Hernandez and Iyengar, 2001;Hofer et al, 2006), it was proposed that individuals who were more personally agentic stressed independence, whereas individuals who were high in communal values stressed interdependence. Specifically, it was hypothesized that A values would exhibit greater intrinsic motivation toward actions perceived as self-initiated and C values would exhibit greater intrinsic motivation toward attitudes and behaviors which would enhance collective interest.…”